After spending an entire night on the Hanoi-Lao Cai train ride followed by a one-hour trip in a car to pass over gently-sloped winding paths, I arrived in Sa Pa at sunrise. The pure atmosphere of the early morning in the mountainous area was a welcome sight.

On my previous visits to the area, I used to mingle with the crowd of tourists to visit Cau May (Cloud Bridge) and Thac Bac (Silver Waterfall) or climb up Ham Rong (Dragon's Jaw) Mountain.

This time, I decided to visit the public herbal bathing spa owned by Ly Lao Lo, a Red Dao ethnic man in Ta Chai Hamlet, Ta Phin Commune. This herbal treatment room was built in a tile-roofed house located among traditional wooden houses.

Here, I learned about the benefits of herbal bath and its history as well as had a peak into the secret of making herbal remedies thanks to the detailed introduction by Tan Ta May, a former tour guide, who specializes in making up the herbal water. He stated that to be effective the water temperature should be 30-370 C and cautiously recommended, depending on your health, a stay in the bathtub should last between 10 and 30 minutes. One can actually become intoxicated from the aromatic herbs.

Each herbal remedy for bathing is created from different medicinal herbs that are collected in forests by the Red Dao people. After being preliminarily treated, the medicinal herbs are boiled in a large barrel for 3-4 hours and then added to water.

The water is added an essential red oil and poured into bathtubs made of wood from the fir tree. Upon entering the steamy, fragrant room the calming properties of the herbs soon took effect. In a very short time I felt completely recovered from the long journey to Sa Pa and totally refreshed.

In Sa Pa, there are nearly 10 specialized bathrooms to provide herb bathing services. Every week, the Red Dao people from Ta Phin Commune deliver medicinal herbs for these establishments. Herb bathing has become a unique tourism product of Sa Pa.

Source: VietnamNet